Orwell’s brilliantly bleak future vision of totalitarianism is arguably the greatest of all literary dystopias, contriving to look back to the Stalinist purges of the 1930s whilst simultaneously predicting with uncanny accuracy the worst excesses of the Cold War-era Soviet Union.
'Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.'
Hidden away in the Record Department of the sprawling Ministry of Truth, Winston Smith skilfully rewrites the past to suit the needs of the Party. Yet he inwardly rebels against the totalitarian world he lives in, which demands absolute obedience and controls him through the all-seeing telescreens and the watchful eye of Big Brother, symbolic head of the Party. In his longing for truth and liberty, Smith begins a secret love affair with a fellow-worker Julia, but soon discovers the true price of freedom is betrayal.
The Penguin English Library - collectable general readers' editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century to the end of the Second World War.
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
ISBN: 9780241341650
Number of pages: 320
Weight: 236 g
Dimensions: 196 x 128 x 18 mm
This book quite simply changed my life. An incredible masterpiece.
This is one of those books that everyone is meant to have read. So I finally got round to reading it. Although its not the longest of books. It is heavy going.
Once you have read it you will see things from a...
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This book was actually recommended to me by my English teacher. He started to tell me this really complicated story about a Party and Big Brother and I didn't understand any of it. So I decided to go ahead and... More
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